


Night is a world lit by itself

by asuralucier



Series: La Notte [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: Attraction, Developing Relationship, Family Dinners, Homesickness, Insomnia, M/M, That Summer, academic anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21887155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: Oliver has insomnia; Elio keeps “needing things” from his room at night.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: La Notte [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626580
Comments: 24
Kudos: 176
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Night is a world lit by itself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elospock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elospock/gifts).



> Thanks for pinch hitting! I hope you enjoy this little treat!
> 
> Title borrowed from Antonio Porchia. I think I read it in _Voices_ , but I’m not 100% on this. If anyone knows, holler at me, please.

I once read somewhere, that the kitchen was the heart of the home. I don’t remember where, now. It might have been in one of my mother’s myriad of housekeeping magazines. She always kept them on the shelf closest to the kitchen, the one en route to the stovetop, next to the one cookbook that she owns but has never consulted. My mother is a bit of a collector. But I’ve also heard it said somewhere, that people liked to collect things they don’t have. This, of course, doesn’t mean that my mother pines for familial warmth. It just means such a thing is perennially missing in our house in a suburban block in Montpelier, Vermont. 

And that maybe she has made her peace with it. 

It’s funny that I would think of our house in Montpelier, now. Realistically, where I grew up (known more than anything for what it wasn’t -- the least populous capital in all fifty states) should be eons from my life now. I’ve spent the last four years of my life in New York, buried under mountains of books, papers, rejection letters from various journals, which I keep to torture myself on a daily basis. 

Perhaps if I’d gone outside more often, Italy wouldn’t be so much of a shock. 

But I am in shock.

“Elio! Elio, come downstairs!” 

The Perlmans are to be my host family for the summer. They are three: Professor Samuel Perlman, who teaches in Milan when it’s not the summer; his wife, Annella, who used to translate real _literature_ but is taking a break. So now it’s just guidebooks, cookbooks. Perhaps if people gave her happier prose to translate, she wouldn’t feel so worn out. 

And finally, there’s their son, Elio. I catch my first glimpse of him as soft, stubborn footfalls descend the stairs. He’s every bit a credit to his parents: long-limbed, dark-haired, eyes eagle-sharp, and yet has none of their affability. 

But I think he’ll get there one day, once he grows out of his boyish unhappiness.

(I don’t think I’m there yet, either, but I am older than Elio, I’ve learned to hide myself better.) 

“Hi,” I say. “I’m Oliver.” 

“Ah, yes,” Elio nods, sticking his hands in the pockets of his corduroy shorts where I can’t reach. I forget about offering my hand. “You’ve come to usurp my room.” 

His father says, warningly, “Elio.” 

I’m just impressed that he knows the word usurp; it’s nearly a word that has no place in this world, but he’s spoken it and given it life. I open my mouth and then I close it again. Somehow, I don’t quite want to give him the satisfaction yet, of having already impressed me. 

“Help Oliver with his things, Elio,” Samuel takes the duffel that is still off my elbow and holds it out towards his son. Elio takes it, grudgingly. “And show him to his room. When you come down again, we’ll have dinner. Annella and Mafalda have been cooking all day.” 

Then Samuel turns to me and smiles, gentle, and fatherly. I don’t often see that. “I hope you enjoy your stay with us, Oliver. We so looked forward to having you here.” 

“This is where you’ll sleep,” Elio says, dumping my backpack without ceremony on a single bed in the corner of the room. “Bathroom is through here. And Mafalda comes up here to clean every afternoon unless you tell her not to. You have to be firm about it. Sometimes she forgets.” 

“Oh,” I say. “Wow. Okay.” 

I look around the room. The walls are bare, but the space is chock full of personality anyway. Samuel did say this was Elio’s room. I set my suitcase down, and I feel him watching me.

I look around. Samuel had offhandedly pointed out his study and the master bedroom downstairs. The upstairs doesn't seem to be able to accommodate much more than Elio's (my) bedroom and his bathroom. A wary feeling rises in me, as I'm keenly aware that I've displaced him in his own home. “If I’m sleeping here, where do you sleep?” 

Elio waves a hand towards the bathroom. “The other side of that. I use it as a closet when I get my room back.” 

I follow him through. It’s windowless, but comfortable enough. There’s even a small foldable desk he can use, if he spreads it across his lap across the mattress. 

“You can come hang out in your room whenever you want,” I say. “Really. I won’t mind. If you need a book, or...anything.” 

We stand almost shoulder to shoulder in his makeshift, tiny closet of a room. Elio hunches forward, as if he can’t stand to touch me. “I don’t need your permission to go into my own room.” Then he turns and goes through the bathroom, back downstairs. 

I’m not terribly hungry. But I couldn’t tell you why I wasn’t, either. They’d served a meal on the plane, that was more plastic than anything resembling food. 

“ _Dai, Oliver!_ ” Annella smiles at me, motioning for Mafalda to heap even more Milanese risotto into my bowl even though I’ve hardly made a dent in it. “ _Non essere timido. Mangia, mangia!_ ” 

Milanese risotto, I learn later, is something of a point of regional pride, and a lot goes into it: beef marrow, saffron, nutmeg, bone stock that’s been on since yesterday evening.

“Not so good for during the summer,” Samuel says, reaching to pour me more chilled white wine. “The kitchen was hot like a venerable hellfire yesterday. But it’s all worth it.” 

“Is it?” I ask.

“Well, so long as you ask for seconds,” Samuel tells me sagely. Eventually I do, I get there in the end. I’ll have to remember to ask for this recipe before I leave. 

Elio doesn’t say another word to me throughout dinner, but when it’s nearly eleven thirty, I hear the bathroom open on my side - the side that leads into his bedroom. 

“Do you not sleep?” 

I sit on Elio’s bed in just some thin flannel pants and no shirt. It’s too hot for a shirt. He’s still not dressed for bed. “By the looks of it, you don’t either.” 

“First few days in the closet are always the worst,” he says, going to his bookshelf and running his fingers across the various volumes before plucking one out. “But then I get used to it; I never like sleeping by the window, anyway.” 

I look towards said window, which I’ve propped open to let in a bit of cool air. Outside, is one of those views that wouldn’t look out of place on a postcard, like a painting. I’ll have to remember to send my mother a postcard, the next time I’m in town. “How come?” 

Elio comes and plops himself down on one edge of his bed, by my feet. “The sun comes up really early. The curtains hardly keep the light out. Keeps waking me up.” He demonstrates, rubbing the thin material between his thumb and forefinger. I'd spied a piano downstairs, but even if I hadn't, his musical inclinations would have been clear to me.

“A real tragedy,” I agree. “Now you can sleep as late as you want.” I have Heidegger’s _Being and Time_ spread across my lap. I keep hoping that the constant lull of chaotic prose, which continue to elude me, might encourage me to give up and nod off. 

So far, no luck. 

Elio looks less than impressed. “I can already do what I want.” 

“So you can,” I say. “Do you want your room back? I can give the closet a go.” 

“Are you sleepy?” 

I’m not really. But I say instead, “I usually don’t sleep very well.” There’s a bit of sleep from the white wine I’ve had from dinner that’s tugging at me. Maybe if I lie down and let it wash over me, I can finally sleep. 

I feel the bed move as Elio stands. “Then maybe skip the closet,” Elio tells me, and I have no idea if he’s doing it to be cruel or kind. “At least I’m already used to it. See you tomorrow.”

“Later,” I say, and reach to turn off the light. 

It might be how quiet this place is, I decide, several nights later as I stare at the second hand on my watch. In New York, I can always count some cacophony to keep me company. In Montpelier, it’s quieter, but not like this. I think it's because the discordant thoughts in my mind haven't really found their footing here, yet. 

Finally, I get up and go sit at Elio’s desk. Recently, I’ve taken it over. For lack of a more elegant word, I’ve exploded my thesis onto its flat surface. I sift through some of piles of loose leaf, trying to find my way back in. I must have arranged them into some semblance of order before I tried to go to sleep, but I don’t remember.

Behind me, the door to the bathroom creaks open. 

I nearly jump, “Christ, you scared me, Elio.” 

Elio emerges from the sliver of space left by the door, a ghost made flesh. He moves quietly, the floor not even making the slightest creak beneath his bare feet. He must have had plenty of practice. 

“It’s nearly two in the morning,” Elio says, and I think that’s his way of apologizing to me. “What are you still doing up?” 

“What would you have done if I’d been asleep?” 

“You wouldn’t have noticed me,” Elio says. In a few long strides, he’s made his way over to where I’m sitting and our closeness heightens my senses, like another layer of this deathly quiet night. I feel him grip the back of my -- his chair. “I would have been in and out. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers. 

“No offense,” I tilt my head up to look at him. “That’s pretty high on the scale of creepers jeepers.” 

“You did say I don’t need permission to come into my room,” Elio reminds me, the slightest hint of smugness clouding the edge of his voice. He peers down at me, flashing teeth, like some sort of half-grown, pining hyena. 

“I know I did,” I say. “But it’s a bit different if I were asleep.” 

“No it wouldn’t,” Elio contests, abandoning his post so suddenly that I missed our closeness. As if I’d just barely started to grow used to it. “You wouldn’t even know if I‘d been in. Can you move for a second? Your chair?” 

“Oh.” I do, starting to push the chair back with the balls of my feet. And then I think better of it. I get up, but not before Elio can move and we touch, only for a second. Less than. “Sorry. Here.” 

“Thanks.” 

He opens one of the drawers. I look over his shoulder and spy a mess of sheet music. Then Elio shuts the drawer again, and hugs the papers to him, as if they are secret. 

We stare at each other some more. I feel his eyes narrow in on my Star of David hanging at the hollow of my throat. He puts a finger against it.

“You okay?” 

“Still can’t sleep,” I say, only too glad to be speaking. It feels strange to sit down again, so I retreat to the bed instead. “Do you want to know something stupid?” 

It might be my imagination, always working against me, no matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise, to do better, but I think Elio just looked in the direction of my thesis. But then no, he’s looking at me. Right at me. 

“Okay.” 

“I think I’m homesick,” I say, lying down on the bed again, pillowing my hands under my head. “Here’s the thing though, I’m not even homesick for New York. New York is terrible. So noisy, and you’re never really alone there. I’m homesick for Montpelier. Vermont. It’s where I’m from. I don’t even like my house that much.” I don’t mention my mother. Usually, she’s not worth mentioning. 

“I know,” Elio says. “Dad showed me your application. He asked me what I thought about your face.” 

“He did?” This surprises me. But then, maybe it shouldn’t have. I once watched as Elio asked his father for a cigarette to smoke out on the porch. I end up bumming one too, but again, out of shock. I don’t ask Elio what he thinks about my face. He spends enough time frowning at it, that I think I can figure his opinion out for myself. 

“Anyway, I don’t think it’s stupid,” Elio tells me. “I’m going to bed again.” 

I learn to expect Elio at night. But not always.

When I feel a soft breath expel itself near my ear, I swear, and swing, nearly smacking Elio in the face. But I don’t, because he ducks just in time. Then he makes himself comfortable on the floor, leaning his elbow on the edge of my thigh. 

“You are very twitchy,” Elio says, half-smiling. 

“It’s what I get when I think about you staring at me while I’m asleep.” I push my chair back, careful to be quiet. I think I’m learning too. Now, if only I could only distill some of my usual fastidiousness and know-how into my thesis. 

I feel a slight pressure as Elio presses his elbow into my thigh, to give himself enough leverage to stand up. 

He stares at my papers, squints at my marginalia. “What’s this say?” 

I look. “I have no clue. Want to know something else stupid?” 

Elio just looks at me. In that moment, I see his future and I think about his parents asleep peacefully downstairs while his own storm is only the beginning.

“I don’t understand anything that I’ve written. It’s like everything I write is suddenly stupid.” 

“It probably wasn’t stupid when you wrote it, know what I mean?” Elio says, hastily burying the offending paper under some other ones. I don’t even get irritated at him for messing up my system. It’s getting increasingly clear to me that I don’t have one. “So maybe you just. I don’t know. Need some sleep. Or better handwriting. Either or.” 

I almost say, _I could kiss you_. Instead, I say, “That’s the first kind thing anyone’s said to me in months.” After all, I am very short on sleep. Under the strange merciful presence of Elio's kindness, I feel the dark arms of sleep starting to embrace me, whereas for months, they'd shunned my advances. 

“So will you get some sleep?” 

I nod. “Yeah.” 

Elio leads me over to his bed and watches me straighten myself onto the mattress. He tugs at the edge of my pillow and then reaches for the bunched blankets I’ve discarded onto the floor. He puts the blankets back on the bed by my feet, but doesn’t move to cover me up.

**Author's Note:**

> Annella says to Oliver, "Go on, don't be shy, eat!" Many thanks to ictus for the translation help!


End file.
